Our Leaf

Since I just mentioned it, maybe it's time to comment on how well, or not, we like our electric Nissan Leaf, now that we have had it for 15 months, going into the second Swedish winter with it.

We bought it used, very reasonably priced, since it's the base model with no frills, from 2013, still the early days of electric cars. Plus, it has a quirky history, being imported from California. This brings a few minor annoyances with it, like the AC temperature setting in Fahrenheit, or that the car cannot be convinced to recognize the European tire-pressure sensors in our winter tires.

But overall we're very happy with it. It's a comfortable ride and covers my commute (2x20km) plus the occasional detour without causing "range anxiety". In summer, a full charge would last for two trips to town and back, so I mostly charge to 80% only then. In winter, the number of charge percentage points needed for a single trip increases from ~20% to ~30%, which still leaves a comfortable margin.

I use the app LeafSpy to read the car's internal information and it tells me that the battery is at 82%, which after more than five years lifetime seems to be slightly above average, when comparing to statistics.

But all the numbers are not what's important. I found driving to work became more relaxing with the Leaf. Stop-and-go traffic is much less stressful than with a stick-shift and the lack of combustion engine decreases the noise-level, which in turn means that I can listen to my podcasts or audiobooks at lover volume - again preventing stress.

In addition, mileage is cheaper (less than half the cost) and less polluting than a fossil car. So we can feel smug about that, too.

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